1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure is directed to medical fluid delivery applications and, particularly, to a portable fluid delivery system for delivering one or more medical fluids and a connector assembly therefor.
2. Description of Related Art
Current medical imaging practice uses a combination of a medical fluid injector and an imaging device to visualize the inside of a patient's body. In certain procedures, a physician maneuvers a catheter to a desired blood vessel, and electromagnetic-absorbing or radiation emitting contrast solution is injected so that the contrast solution, commonly referred to as “contrast”, becomes clearly visible against the background of the surrounding tissue.
Using the resultant image, a physician makes a diagnosis and determines appropriate treatment. In interventional procedures, treatment is performed using injection catheters, atherectomy devices, stents, or any one of many interventional devices. Often, the interventional treatment is performed during the angiographic procedure, although sometimes treatment is performed at a later time.
During certain procedures, in addition to contrast, it is common to inject saline to flush the contrast from the catheter. This keeps the catheter lumen open (unclotted), and/or acts as a fluid path for measuring blood pressure. In certain embodiments, the physician performs the injections by hand. However, it may be difficult for a human to inject a fluid at a steady rate, especially for slow rates (ml/min) extending more than a minute. Motion at a slow rate suffers from stick-slip friction in the syringe, and it takes prolonged concentration to maintain a steady injection rate for extended time periods during the procedure. There is significant risk of accidental jerking or bolus injection that either wastes drug or causes it to reflux into the aorta and travel elsewhere in the body. Also, as syringes are connected and disconnected, the plunger can be unintentionally bumped and a bolus of drug injected into the patient or expelled into the environment. Additionally, the changeover time from drug syringe to saline syringe causes an uncontrolled break in therapy injection. As the drug is susceptible to clump formation or crystallization if agitated, manually connecting and disconnecting the syringe provides opportunities for agitation and clumping/crystallizing.
For certain procedures, powered injectors are used to inject the contrast because of its high viscosity and the high pressures required to drive contrast through small catheter diameters. Powered injectors can, for example, develop pressures up to 1200 psi in such injections. The pressure range used in such injections is well above the pressure a person can practically develop via hand injection. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,494,036, 6,339,718, 5,843,037, 5,840,026, 5,806,519, 5,739,508, and 5,569,181, assigned to the assignee of the present disclosure, which are incorporated herein by reference, disclose the use of powered injector systems that are capable of injecting contrast, saline, and other fluids, either at the same time or in sequence.
One difficulty with such currently available powered injectors is that they require a complex fluid path set to deliver the one or more fluids from a storage container to the patient. Typically, such a fluid path set includes a plurality of fluid lines that are interconnected by one or more connectors and valves. In many cases, a new fluid path set must be assembled for each new patient. Additionally, one or more fluid storage containers are separately provided to the fluid delivery device and must be connected therewith prior to the injection procedure. The assembly process is laborious and time consuming, and increases the risk that some of the fluid may be spilled, aerosolized, or otherwise contaminated. Conventional medical connectors for use with powered injectors require the user to ensure that proper sterilization precautions are taken each time a new connection is made. There exists a significant risk of contamination due to human error in handling the connectors. Furthermore, because conventional medical connectors for use with powered injectors do not have reusable components, large stockpiles of medical connectors must be kept on premises, which increases storage costs and per procedure costs. Accordingly, a need exists for an improved fluid delivery system and a connector assembly therefor.